Friday, September 16, 2011

What the Science Really Says: The Theory of Evolution Versus the Fact of Evolution or Science Versus Religion

While evolutionists consistently state that evolution is a fact beyond all reasonable doubt, the empirical evidence consistently states otherwise. One can see examples of this in the scientific journals, where articles assume evolution is true from the beginning, but then also present the scientific evidence which point in the other direction. It is interesting to see this manifestation of science versus religion buried in the depths of research papers. Here is one paper that tries to explain how evolution works, but must admit that “we know little about the fundamental principles of phenotypic variability that permit new phenotypes to arise.”

In other words, our convictions mandate that evolution is true even though after centuries of trying, we can’t force-fit the facts to the theory. But we’ll keep on trying anyway because we have no other choice.

23 comments:

"The history of life is a history of evolutionary innovations, qualitatively new phenotypic traits that endow their bearers with new, often game-changing abilities. We know many individual examples of innovations and their natural history, but we know little about the fundamental principles of phenotypic variability that permit new phenotypes to arise. Most phenotypic innovations result from changes in three classes of systems: metabolic networks, regulatory circuits, and macromolecules. I here highlight two important features that these classes of systems share. The first is the ubiquity of vast genotype networks – connected sets of genotypes with the same phenotype. The second is the great phenotypic diversity of small neighborhoods around different genotypes in genotype space. I here explain that both features are essential for the phenotypic variability that can bring forth qualitatively new phenotypes. Both features emerge from a common cause, the robustness of phenotypes to perturbations, whose origins are linked to life in changing environments."

I've highlighted a couple of points that seem to contradict Dr Hunter's claim about force-fitting theories to facts. This paper, which is behind Elsevier's pay-wall, is apparently a review of some unanswered questions in biology and some suggested answers. (It doesn't look like a report of new observations or experimental findings.)

We can deduce from scientific experiments and observations that dropped objects fall down - ie, that there seems to be a force pulling unsupported objects towards the ground.

We can also deduce that mass is a relevant variable for the strength of this force, but colour is not.

We might also be faced with mysteries - we might not know how gravity came about, or if it existed before anyone was around to witness it, or the precise details of how it acts in the very cores of black holes. Our knowledge of gravity might be, in short, incomplete. But that does not invalidate what we DO know about it.

Cornelius's 'We don't know everything so we don't know anything' troupe is as vapid as it is predictable.

I have read one interesting piece on Mr Anderas Wagner where he was asked a series of questions and his answers. Actually the reading was quite interesting and revealing.

He is most definitely acknowledges the importance of politics, in fact makes ananlogies between conservatives and Liberals and how evolution works like those two oposing philosophies where the Staunch Conservative is like the Status quo in the natural world and the Liberal is open to new ideas. The status quo is constantly perturbed by outside influences, but sometimes changes are necessary and cannot be helped.

Here's a question for Cornelius. I actually don't know much about the political leanings one way or another about the I.D. movement, but here's a quote from the paper where Andeas says that the goal of the Intelligent Design Movement is to get evolution out of the classrooms period.

Andreas Wagner:

"I call I.D. pseudoscientific because it's scientific tenet implies that we should stop trying to understand how evolutionary inovations arose."

Though I don't know much about the politicing of ID, I've never read anywhere, where they wanted Evolution teachings stopped and be replcaed by ID.

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Here's another entertaining piece.

Andreas Wagner:

"In my group's work, we take the ability of biological systems to evolve innovations as a given, . . "

So he apparently acknowledges and validates the Evolution FACT Mandate you so often mention.

Clearly you've ignored in the past where I've stated it is misused and abused. But the above crank uses it in a righteous sense and that it is NOT. It's only as good or bad as the imperfect ulterior motivated humans that employ it. Mostly it is driven by selfishness and greed. It is a power and wealth driven animal and pursues those goals at any cost without empathy.

"Clearly you've ignored in the past where I've stated it is misused and abused."

You can misuse and a tool. That's my point.

"It's only as good or bad as the imperfect ulterior motivated humans that employ it."

Yes, exactly! So the issues of the state of the planet are not the fault of SCIENCE ITSELF, are they?

"Mostly it is driven by selfishness and greed"

That's as may be. I'm not agreeing or denying here. But if true, it doesn't make it FACTUALLY INCORRECT, does it? I could offer a cash reward to anyone who solves a scientific puzzle. If someone does so, the fact alone that he was motivated by greed - his desire for the cash reward - wouldn't make his solution INCORRECT, would it?

I used a quote by Michael Lynch in a paper of mine that says pretty much the same thing:

"... the population-genetic mechanisms by which complex adaptations are acquired remains to be developed."

Michael Lynch, “Scaling expectations for the time to establishment of complex adaptations,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 11, 2010 available from http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/30/1010836107.abstract Internet. accessed 17 Sep 2010.

Perhaps someone should educate the National Center for Science Education that evolution is not a fact. This organization should be better informed of the science.

Perhaps someone should educate the National Center for Science Education that evolution is not a fact. This organization should be better informed of the science.

Perhaps someone should educate Peter Wadeck on the difference between the observed fact of evolution - common descent and the phenotypic changes in life forms over deep time - and the theory of evolution, which explains the mechanisms by which the observed fact of evolution occurred.

Nah, let him stay an ignorant Creationist. They're good for comic relief.

Ritchie:" we might not know how gravity came about, or if it existed before anyone was around to witness it, "

But evolution is a fact!

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Yes, exactly. Just as gravity is a fact. Even if we don't know every last tiny detail about it.

Scepticism of evolution on the basis of 'here's a mystery evolution can't explain' makes as much logical sense as doubting the existence of gravity because we can't yet explain exactly what happens to gravity at the centre of a black hole.

I used a quote by Michael Lynch in a paper of mine that says pretty much the same thing:

"... the population-genetic mechanisms by which complex adaptations are acquired remains to be developed."

Why did you quote-mine the quote and cut off the most important part? That's pretty dishonest there Peter.

Here's the whole abstract

"Although the vast majority of research in evolutionary biology is focused on adaption, a general theory for the population-genetic mechanisms by which complex adaptations are acquired remains to be developed. The issue explored here is the procurement of novel traits that specifically require multiple mutations to achieve a fitness advantage. By highlighting the roles played by the forces of mutation, recombination, and random genetic drift, and drawing from observations on the joint constraints on these factors, the ways in which rates of acquisition of specific types of adaptations scale with population size are explored. These general results provide insight into a number of ongoing controversies regarding the molecular basis of adaptation, including the adaptive utility of recombination and the role of drift in the passage through adaptive valleys. "

Though I don't know much about the politicing of ID, I've never read anywhere, where they wanted Evolution teachings stopped and be replcaed by ID.

I have always advocated the teaching of evolution. In general, ID policy and legal actions are moves to expand information flow whereas evolutionary policies and legal actions are moves to shut it down (in the name of protecting ourselves, of course).

Wagner: I call I.D. pseudoscientific because it's scientific tenet implies that we should stop trying to understand how evolutionary inovations arose.

So heliocentrism is pseudoscience because it implies we should stop trying to understand how geocentrism works.

Wagner: In my group's work, we take the ability of biological systems to evolve innovations as a given, . .

The world we live in today must change. This change can be positive or negative, but change it must. This is because any particular state of the world is ultimately unsustainable. If we do not continue to create knowledge, we will be unprepared for problems that are inevitable, and we will die out. The city I live in today was extremely inhospitable to life, until we adapted it as such. It's the same, to different degrees, everywhere.

For example, it's been said that by the time we figured out that CO2 emissions were effecting our climate, it was already to late to do anything about it. The problem was inevitable. At best, all we could do was mitigate the effects and at great expense.

This is similar to claims made by the "The Population Bomb" book, I mentioned <a href="http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2011/09/amylome-more-constraints-on-protein.html?showComment=1315937937725#c2959620799305326360>here</a>

However, this sort of approach is like saying the science of medicine consist of learning to avoid getting punched in the nose, which would be highly parochial. Rather, the science of medicine consists of creating knowledge of how the human body works as a whole, which allows us to adapt it a wide variety insults - both external and internal - rather than just how to avoid them in the first place.

For example, we can pass laws to greatly reduce industrial and vehicle emissions. And we can do so dramatically and at great cost as an attempt to mitigate the problem. However, we cannot pass laws to prevent problems that haven't identified yet. Nor could we pass a law to make a future global increase in volcanic eruptions, which also release CO2, illegal.

In other words, focusing all of our efforts in avoiding industrial emissions (the equivalent of getting punched in the nose) doesn't help create the knowledge of how to avoid volcanic eruptions (the equivalent of being kicked in the stomach) or some other problem we haven't discovered yet (some yet to be discovered disease).

So, rather than focusing all of our energy on reducing emissions at any cost, we should be focusing more of our effort in creating the knowledge of how to live comfortably at higher temperatures, creating the knowledge of how to create organisms that are more efficient at converting CO2 to oxygen, creating the knowledge to building a network of satellites that can reflect large amounts of the sun's energy away from the earths surface, etc. And we should attempt to do so cost effectively, rather than at any expense.

Note, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't reduce emissions, but we should do so efficiently, rather than at any cost. Again, see my comment on the "The Population Bomb", which claimed starvation and social upheaval was inevitable and our only option was mitigate the effect by starving countries that did not follow population guidelines.

Dr. Hunter's point, today as well as multiple myriads of posts before, is that Darwinists/evolutionists BELIEVE (a "faith" word) evolution must be true for various, metaphysical reasons. So they shoehorn all the evidence into a narrative that supports what they believe. When the evidence points to a very different POSSIBILITY, well, it's just an anomaly...and so another explanatory just-so story is born. Every single nay saying post by every single critic here simply and clearly supports Dr. Hunter's thesis! I love this blog!!!

CH: While evolutionists consistently state that evolution is a fact beyond all reasonable doubt, the empirical evidence consistently states otherwise.

Where do you keep coming up with this stuff? For example, wouldn't this require that all evolutionists are empiricists and justificationists, rather than, say, fallibilists and critical rationalists?

To quote from the Wikipedia entry…

By dissolving justificationism itself, the critical rationalist regards knowledge and rationality, reason and science, as neither foundational nor infallible, but nevertheless does not think we must therefore all be relativists. Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought.

CH: One can see examples of this in the scientific journals, where articles assume evolution is true from the beginning, but then also present the scientific evidence which point in the other direction.

Again, how exactly have you determined this?

Neo-Darwinsm is an explanation for how the knowledge to create each species, as found in the genome, was created. Please explain how scientific journals present scientific evidence that points in the other direction.

Furthermore, when will you explain how you can extrapolate observations without first putting them into an explanatory framework?

CH: Here is one paper that tries to explain how evolution works, but must admit that “we know little about the fundamental principles of phenotypic variability that permit new phenotypes to arise.”

You're confusing the mechanism verses the core explanation of the theory itself.

Evolutionary mechanisms fall under the same fundamental process that we use to create knowledge: variation and error correction. In the case of Evolution, this is random mutation, HGT, duplication, etc. In the case of science, we create knowledge by using conjecture to create theories, test them with observations, then discard those with errors.

So, again, what evidence in scientific journals point to knowledge having been created in some other other direction?

CH: In other words, our convictions mandate that evolution is true even though after centuries of trying, we can’t force-fit the facts to the theory. But we’ll keep on trying anyway because we have no other choice.

Huh?

It's you that lacks any choice. The knowledge of how to create each species couldn't have been created at all. If it was, then the "designer" must have been created or didn't always have the knowledge of how to create every species that has and will exist.

This simply doesn't leave the door open wide enough for the God of classical theism, as he would have either have been created himself or he wouldn't have always been omniscient.